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I have a friend that has a 55 gallon reef with a wet/dry with bio-balls. They get their tank serviced by a guy that swears by them. I dont like them for a reef tank, is this correct?
Bio Balls in a reef tank?
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They think its bad to wash them, I dont know what to tell them- Maybe i shouldnt worry about their tank anymore...
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I have them in a wet/dry on my 55....every few weeks or so I remove a few handfuls and clean them in fresh made saltwater....no specific time, just when I am already messing with the tank and checking the filter. Seems to work pretty good.
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Cool thanks Jamie and Charlie. I will let them know.
I used bioballs when I first went to a wet-dry filter. After a period of time, I had a green hair algae problem that would not go away. Nitrate tests showed next to nothing. That was because the algae was absorbing it. I did some research and found some articles mentioning that bioballs were linked to hair algae. As soon as I removed the bioballs, the algae problem decreased and eventually went away.
In a reef tank, the rock supplies enough biological filtration unless your tank is over populated. Let the skimmer do the rest.
In a reef tank, the rock supplies enough biological filtration unless your tank is over populated. Let the skimmer do the rest.
From what I've read, the problem with wet/dry filters is that they only do 1/2 the job and they do it too well. They break down waste into nitrate, but there is often no sufficiently matching system to break down the nitrate into nitrogen. Where a system using live rock and a skimmer would have the skimmer (hopefully) doing most of the work removing waste before it decomposes and then the live rock providing aerobic and anaerobic filtration necessary to do the complete conversion of waste -> nitrate -> nitrogen.
The abundantly efficient breakdown before the skimmer can do its thing causes a spike in nitrate which leads to algae blooms, dead invertebrates, and dead SPS corals.
Under the right conditions, the wet/dry might not be a nitrate farm, but odds are it's not doing that much in the system vs. the live rock and skimmer because if the wet/dry was carrying most of the bio load, there'd be nothing to do the nitrate -> nitrogen conversion.
The abundantly efficient breakdown before the skimmer can do its thing causes a spike in nitrate which leads to algae blooms, dead invertebrates, and dead SPS corals.
Under the right conditions, the wet/dry might not be a nitrate farm, but odds are it's not doing that much in the system vs. the live rock and skimmer because if the wet/dry was carrying most of the bio load, there'd be nothing to do the nitrate -> nitrogen conversion.
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I have had bioballs in my sump for over 1 1/2 yrs and have never cleaned them. Nitrates still close to 0! Skimmer, water changes, etc. About to make a big change with a 70gal stock tank as the sump though so the bioballs will be outa there!
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